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File XVI.
Jørgen Moe. "Indledning."

Samling af Sange, Folkeviser og Stev. Norske Alumuedialekter. Christiania: P. T. Mallings Forlag, 1840.

Translators note:

This is the introduction to one of the first collections of "folk" literature in Norway. Some of it will not be easily understood by English-speaking readers, since it has to do with styles of verse and folk poetry unfamiliar outside of Norway. All the same, it has seemed worthwhile to include the essay because of its intrinsic interest, and because its ideas appear to have influenced Ibsen in the composition of some of the poems he wrote in 1849-50. He planned to produce a series of folk songs at the time, but the only one of this series which survives is "Møllergutten" ("The Miller Boy"), whose verses are actually lyrics. They were to be set to the melody of a folk song, "Aa kjøre vatn aa kjøre ved" ("To carry water, to carry wood"). See H[ans] Eitrem, "Henrik Ibsen—Henrik Wergeland," Maal og Minne (Kristiania) 1910, 38-9.

The author of this essay was later to be the partner of Peter Asbjørnsen in a famous project of collecting Norwegian folk tales: Peter Christen Asbjørnsen og Jørgen Moe. Norske folkeeventyr. 2^nd ed. Christiania: J. Dahl, 1852.

If one assumes that the main requirement of a country's serious literature is that it should reflect, in pure, refined images, the life of the people as it has existed as a result of physical and historical conditions, it will hardly occur to anyone to deny that what we call Norwegian poetry stands very low. Nor will anyone grope for long after the reason: at the time "the lion was tamed by a poodle," it was natural that the Norwegian Pegasus, displaced onto the Danish plains and mauled by German and French, forgot its ancient flight from mountaintop to mountaintop. After the separation from Denmark the political element consumed all the energy, and none of that period's poetry-writing Northmen towered so much above his time that, liberated from this one-sided struggle, he was able to lose himself in and express the home-and-heart-life of the people,--except for just one, our splendid Maurits Hansen. But one swallow--even a swallow with such a melodious breast--does not make a summer, and the present subject therefore involves the unusual circumstance that our "art" poetry as a whole is rather separate from, is indeed purely alien to our "folk" poetry, such as it manifests itself, principally in stories and legends, but also in individual metric, lyric-epic forms. Still, however artificial and refined a country's literature may be, even so, if it is genuine, it has always preserved a fundamental tone in its folk poetry;--among us everyone sounds his own tone, and where the sounds unite, it has often been as disharmony.

Even less than the life of the people, which so far has had one poet, has our mountain scenery found a person who was open to it and also possessed of a mind, who was able to liberate its poetry from fossilization, in which it lies spellbound. In this respect--I know it is a frightful heresy, but it must here come out!--I have a rash hope for Mr. Welhaven, a hope several of his poems have not alone for me awakened, but for me still only partly satisfied.

For all those who acknowledge this defect of our "art" poetry--certainly the worst it can have--every means to alleviate the same must be of the utmost importance, and as long as there do not appear some, or even just one poetic spirit with the superior ability, that by its own power it can immerse itself in the life of the people and there liberate and resurrect with itself the abundance of poetry it possesses, so long must the present means be sought, of reaching poetic persons with folk poems, in order that the breath of these (which in truth can be compared with the awakening and enlivening spring wind) can stimulate them to productions written in the people's spirit, or to receptivity to the same.

Of course, I do not by any means want to have the designation "poetic person" taken in the narrowest sense of those--God knows how many--poet-names that, all things considered, we could thereby obtain; I refer here equally to the brilliant readers, whose awakening to love the patriotic element in our self-developing literature is just as necessary, inasmuch as it is certain that the poet, gently lifted and carried on his public's love, is able to attain the highest. As far as the poems themselves are concerned, it is naturally not really the intention to present subject matter (Stof) in the folk poetry,--we have enough of that, for the time being we have too much; I consider the worth and meaning of these, as I suggested, to be only in the inspiration and liveliness they carry in themselves. To be sure I judge those popular prose poems, legends, and especially folktales appearing abundantly among us far higher in this respect than the only thinly appearing versified forms, because the former (i.e., in prose), which to a great extent are Filosofemer (?) have a quite different profundity, and because they are lighter in a technical sense, they far more purely and more definitely express their idea, while the latter (i.e., versified) lie bound in the form's far from inflexible and perfectly developed organism; but nevertheless these latter also without a doubt fully deserve attention, and that the moreso as they are more rare. They have besides something that must and will secure them access to eye and ear--their melodies, these often so boundlessly delightful tones, whereby our mountain valleys' desires and pains dissolve and die.

This is partly the meaning (betydningen) which has led to the publication of this collection; still, it can be considered from another perspective, from that of the language. Indeed, as far as that goes, the dialects--with which I do not have familiarity enough to be able to judge--are reliable, yielding examples, remnants of which our valley district still preserves of our glorious old Norse speech, and how these now form themselves--a contribution which could be interesting not alone for our age's researchers, but also for everyone else who intends to use our language as a means of public communication. Indeed, I in no way want to have Dolgsmaal (?) laid on my conviction that it is the one correct thing that our writers fetch from the gold mines of the common language, that they need and that they could profitably use; these mines contain ores which have a clear and strong sound for melodies precisely for what Norwegians have to say and sing. That criticism and taste must be applied here, however, is something which goes without saying. Moreover it is certainly the same, whether this conviction is concealed or expressed, it will even so in time manifest itself!

This about the book in general. About its first part especially there is nothing much to say. What there is of it is good, for example the delightful Stockfleth-esque "Heimatkomt" ("Homecoming") and much of Storm, needs no recommendation, and of what is possibly less good it would even be wasted. Often the melody recommends the less remarkable text. But there could be a word to say about the poems in the second part of the book. These are authentic folk-poems, and insofar as they are well-chosen, they bear the inner mark thereof. But the artlessness in the form, which is to that extent remarkable, combines indeed the bold and certainly the typical, the genuine, the true and the proficient, which surprisingly meet us in all folk poetry. But do not ask here about the author; with every poem one receives only one answer: the people; since it is written not to win a name, but delight (Luft)--it is the profuse life, which must liberate itself, that is the source, that which fights its way up into the daylight. What Heine has adduced about the German peasant's improvisations:

Wer hat das schone Liedel erdacht?
Es habens drei Gans ubers Wasser gebracht,
Zwei graue und eine weife,

(Who has made this beautiful song?"
Three geese have brought it over the water,
Two gray and one white,)

is said in Norwegian about these folk-poems:

Aa denna Visa har gjort sei sjøl:
Hu kom naa flytanes paa et Fjøl.

(This ballad has made itself:
She came floating on a plank.)

But precisely because it is inclination and not conscious purpose to which these poems owe their existence, they have accordingly something to give, and they give it with truth. As improvisations they must necessarily be understood in connection with their melodies, and as such they have an often miraculous power. As an example I will mention the deep, intimately lamenting: "Ifjør jet e Jeiten." In contrast to this the baroque-comic "Han Mas aa'n Lasse" constitutes an example. In the background of this baroque-comic mood, where everything romps joyfully together, there remains in addition, often in the text, but almost always in the melody, a painful, subdued tone, which I do not know how to compare with anything better than with the miraculously vibrating and trembling lower string on the bottom of the Hardanger fiddle, when it is scraped in a charming Halling-dance, with short bold strokes. This painful trembling, this hidden zithering restlessness in the midst of the noisy, joyful, enthusiastic happiness I believe is distinctively Norwegian, a sound from our mountain scenery itself, and I suggest it is not at all accidental that our folk-virtuosos' instrument is constructed in just that way. Through others (i.e., other poems) there goes a gentle romantic tone, for example through "Rabnabryllup i Kraakalund," which has the intimacy of a children's fairy-tale, and the especially pretty erotic situation: "Je seer dei ut for Gluggen" ("I see you through the peephole").

--But it is especially the verses (Stevene), which by their distinctive method of coming into being and use, perhaps even more than by their contents, have claims on the attention. The verses, named after stef, i.e., a kind of reflective, continually backward-looking refrain in the old skalds' strophes--are indeed to be regarded as a remnant of the improvisation through which the ancestors easily and energetically discharged their lively hearts. To "make stev" (i.e., to carry on a (dialogue) contest in the improvisation of "stev") is a social entertainment; it is very common in several mountain parishes, as far as I know, especially in the southwestern part of the country; it consists of a song-competition, which is opened by a singer in the crowd (prepared), as with a provocative glance and tone he sings one of the usually stock challenging forms, like

"Stevjast mæ me, kan de lite nytte;
Men e ska laane de Krok aa Lykke,
Aa e ska laane de Lykkje aa Krok
Aa hægt saa Kjæften din vel ihop!"

(To make stev" with me, will do you little good;
But I shall loan you a hook for luck,
Oh I shall loan you a ribbon with the hook
To fasten your mouth together!)

The one who takes up the challenge, answers for example:

Aa e ska ta dine Or paatværke,
Saa dine Kjakabein, dei ska værke,
Aa e ska ta dine Or paa Sne,
Saa Nasetippen ska hænge ne!

(Oh I shall twist your ear crosswise,
So your jawbone, will pain you,
Oh I shall twist your ear askew,
So the tip of your nose will hang down!)

I have taken pains to choose a pair of the most grandiose-arrogant suggestive verses (Intimationsvers), in order to show that in this piece our folk-singers in their controversies are not inferior to our educated poets; but should someone believe all the same that they must yield, I do not know how to rescue them in any other way than by calling attention to the lively mood in their boasting; that will most likely restore the balance again.

Accordingly, when the battle is opened, they attack each other with stev of varied contents, until one is silenced and thereby conquered. However, one must not imagine the whole as improvisation; the true Steverne are armed for battle with a whole pile of memorized stev, among which, during the struggle, they have only to choose, or from which they choose and later accommodate what is chosen in its details; since the one's stev always constitutes a supplementing or responding link to the other's preceding. Only when the combatants flare right up in anger, is everything improvised between them, and these momentary inspirations (Tankefugle, i.e., "thought-birds") usually have both beak and claws. In a second sense, namely in its origins, however, the whole battle's series of stev is naturally, like all folk-poetry, improvisation; not only by the Stever but also from the crowd. Accordingly the custom that the Steverne have inherited from the old skalds, that they assiduously wet the throat, so the song will not sound hoarse; but this is the only pause which dares find a place, as long as the battle lasts.

From this brief discussion of the origin and use of the stev, one should expect a more pointed and less intricate subject matter than that here communicated allows one to conclude. But partly one must remember that a large part are written in another time, and partly reveal these children of nature in the midst of the listening crowd, free and unhindered, (expressing) what moves them then and there. On the girls' lips especially therefore these small poems often overflow with a warmth of feeling and an unmistakable sincerity; one can easily feel that here especially, as in other places, is love's pleasure and pain, which brings the warm blood to rise and the song to emit a fragrance. The prettiest of those here presented, those from Telemark, are almost all serious, and with all their simplicity, many still have something which finds a way to the heart. If the mind is to comprehend these poems, however, it must liberate itself from the effort of reading modern refined poetry as a path to perceiving a hidden meaning underneath their naive and unsophisticated expression; of such a betrayal--if I may so call it--these small poems, in their innocence, know nothing. As an example I shall mention the stev: "Ja Kjærlikheta, ho kan bedrøve" ("Yes Love, how it can grieve"). In several of the gay and joyful expressions there is a good-natured teasing; something could even be fine in suggestions for example "Om alle Guter sto i ei Line" ("If all the boys stood in a line"); but all of this kind have that true, strong nature's priceless mood, replaceable by no substitute.

In technical respects, one notices that all are formed according to the same pattern, because they are the same melody underneath; from this perhaps the name. The easily soluble iambic series for each of these are besides not otherwise notable, than that the last enjambment's variation or supplement of the thought in the first enjambment, which can be compared with similar in heroic ballads, bears witness to the poems' origin by improvisation, and furthermore what is more essential, that in the most highly imperfect rhyme the vocal sounds' resonance is sought with surprising accuracy and found with certainty. Should this signify that poetry with assonances will be able to find acceptance among our people?

With these introductory comments the book is delivered to readers of good will. Its poetry and melodies sound around Mangen's bow, soothing him in his first slumber and blending themselves in his gentlest dream; his childhood memories will better and more prettily tell their tale.

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The materials on this website are © copyrighted, and are for the use of individuals and educational institutions only. Any commercial use requires the permission of the compiler & translator P.E. Larson.